Adobe Premiere AudioPrefetch.cpp-87 Error

[UPDATE: 11-15-14] The “definitive solution” is at the end of this post.

The dreaded AudioPrefetch.cpp-87 error has been present in Adobe Premiere Pro at least since version CS4 and continues to wreak havoc through CS6.1 and possibly later (CC?).

Adobe has answered with everything from “simply cut and paste your timeline onto a new one” to “you must completely reinstall your software.”

Unfortunately, neither of these is necessarily the answer.

The issue has to do with playback and rendering the audio wave form (the visual representation of the audio wave). I assume the term “prefetch” means the program is trying to “fetch” the audio wave image before it is played back on the timeline.  When it cannot do this, the error is spawned.

The error seems to occur most often (if not always), when Premiere is trying to play a clip that has been conformed to a non-native format. For instance, if you have a clip that you shot at 59.97fps but then conformed to 23.976fps so the clip would play in slow motion, and if you are allowing the audio to play, you will eventually get this error.

If you minimize the audio clip (click the triangle to the far left in the timeline) so that the wave form is not being shown and therefore not being rendered, the error will not occur.  If you are not using the audio (most often if the clip is slomo, you will not be using the audio), you can simply “unlink” the audio from the video clip (right-click, unlink) and delete the audio portion of the clip.  The error will no longer occur.

If you are doing something weird (like I often am), and you actually want to PLAY the slow-motion audio and need to see the waveform in order to edit in/out points, key frames, volume, etc., you are simply out of luck and will need to keep closing the program (making sure to click “close” a million times on all the prefetch error dialog boxes that are likely stacked up behind your main edit window), then re-opening the project and working until the error occurs again.

The “copy/paste to a new timeline” fix has been the go-to answer for years.  The idea is that doing this will resolve any issue with a corrupt clip on the timeline.  While it’s not a total fix (it does seem to work sometimes), I have noticed that the “copy all the clips on the timeline to a new sequence” solution does seem to extend the amount of time you will have once you re-open the program to work on the new sequence/timeline.  Just be sure that once the error occurs, you copy and paste everything to a new sequence and then delete the old sequence without ever playing either the old or new timeline/sequence.  Bear in mind, this solution means you will lose all settings you had for the original sequence (track names, mixer channel names, key frames on the timeline (not key frames on the clips), etc.).

[UPDATE: 9-30-14] Now I’m getting an AudioPrefetch.cpp-99 error in CS6.0.5. It behaves exactly the same.

[UPDATE: 11-15-14] I have been working on a project with a lot of overcranked footage, and utilizing a lot of the overcranked audio.  As such, I have come up with what I will call the “definitive” solution to this issue.  The problem is a result of Premiere having to process “slow motion” audio in real time (on the fly).  Thus, I figured the solution would be to convert the slo-mo audio to “regular” audio.  Simply right-click any active slowed down audio on your timeline, open in Audition, resave as a “normal” file, and then import that file and replace the audio clip (highlight the new audio file in your bin, right click the slow motion audio clip on your timeline, right-click and select “replace with clip from bin”).  Golden.

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The Wish You Were Here (drink recipe)

 

• Domaine Canton
• Jim Beam Black (bourbon)
• Blueberries
• Mint
• Dash dried jalapeno powder
• Dash orange bitters
• Fresh cilantro
• Tall Sprig of Cilantro Seed Cluster

Muddle blueberries, mint, fresh cilantro (not the seed sprig), and jalapeno powder in shaker.  Add Canton and Bourbon to liking (generally 1 to 3), dash orange bitters, ice, shake till ice is nicely bruised.

Place sprig of mint, 3 blueberries, and a tall sprig of cilantro seed cluster into chilled martini glass.  Pour shaker contents into glass.

The “trick” to this drink is that you can only make it when your cilantro has gone to seed, which is usually kind of annoying, but now that there’s this… I love it when the cilantro goes to seed!  As a garnish, the tall sprig is nearer your nose and imparts a wonderful smell as part of the drinking experience.

This drink is pretty involved to make, so there is a simpler version that devolved from the Wish You Were Here: the “German Bimber” (which is a German Bimber induced translation of Ginger/Bourbon).

The German Bimber is also a very tasty drink, and much simpler to make.  Put some Domaine Canton in your Bourbon over ice.  Add blueberries and cilantro if you feel like it.  There you go. [wink]

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Verizon Has Been Calling Me Twice a Day for More Than a Month

I have been getting calls from the same number (several numbers, actually, in New York and in Boston) at least two times a day for more than a month.

Here are some of the numbers from my call log:

617-342-0412 (Boston, MA)
508-884-1230 (Massachusetts)
617-878-1158 (Boston, MA)
917-779-2500 (New York) –this one calls A LOT
508-884-1808 (Massachusetts)

(there are many more numbers, presumably from this company’s call bank, but I’m not going to type them all out)

When I finally answered this morning (because the call was at SIX THIRTY IN THE MORNING my time and I wanted the calls to STOP), the ultra-rude guy on the other end told me he was from Verizon.

He insisted that I had placed some weird technical order with their business services.  I explained that he was calling someone’s personal cell phone, and I had no idea what he was talking about.  He further insisted that this was the correct number (a number I’ve been using for around 15 years), and started yelling at me (yes, yelling) when I got upset that he wouldn’t stop calling.

I have received 6 more calls today.  Every single person I have spoken to has been extremely rude when I asked to stop being called.  Things like, “Well this is the number on the order.”  To which I respond, “well I’ve explained to every single person who’s called me that this is my personal cell phone, I have no idea what you are talking about, and everyone keeps promising me that I won’t receive calls for this order at this number any more.”

One of the calls was a restricted line, and a guy actually left a message stating: “C order 6B256544 if this is the correct number for the circuit you can call us at 800-891-0301 option 8, 3, and 1.” I called this number and spent about fifteen minutes on hold and being routed around the system before I gave up.

The last guy told me that if an order has a phone number on it with “their company,” I will continue to receive calls until the order is fulfilled or resolved.  I explained that the number on the order is wrong, and he said there was nothing he could do about it; that he couldn’t change the number on the order.  “So I’m just going to keep receiving calls forever?”  “That’s not what I said!” he replied in a heated tone.  “But you did say the number on the order couldn’t be changed, so I will continue to receive calls, right?”  “Correct.”

I asked to speak to his supervisor.

He gave me the name Tanya Barnett and a number of 617-342-0412.  This number is the general number to get into Verizon’s voice mail system (to get into the system, not to get to a person).  Therefore, he gave me a number for no one.

This is EXTREMELY annoying, but I have no recourse, because there is no one to contact about the issue, and the people who are calling are extremely rude, don’t care what is happening, and obviously have NO intention of fixing the situation.

Hopefully creating this blog post will either bring the issue to someone’s attention, or people having a similar issue will post in the comments when searching the number that keeps calling them so we can get to the bottom of this intrusive and disrespectful situation that Verizon is creating.

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Converting an Image from Adobe RGB to sRGB for Printing

I recently started using a professional online service to print my photos.  In doing so, I have done a lot of research regarding Color Profiles, soft proofing, calibrating, etc., to be sure the photos on my computer screen look exactly like the prints I receive back.

One of the major things to consider when setting up your digital photography workflow is what color profile to work in.  The Adobe RGB color profile is a wider (more information) profile than the “standard” sRGB.  However, most pro labs will want your work in sRGB, thus, the problem becomes how to edit in Adobe RGB (so you can utilize all that juicy information) but serve up your photo in sRGB at the end without losing any image quality or experiencing any shift in color/brightness/depth, etc.

The simplest way to change from Adobe RGB to sRGB in Photoshop is to simply go to the “Edit” menu, select “Assign Color Profile,” and switch it to sRGB.  However, I find that when I do this, the changes I see are far to great to be satisfactory.

Luckily, Adobe Camera Raw has a much better engine to convert files.  The problem then becomes, how do I open a PSD file (assuming you are editing photos in Photoshop) in Adobe Camera Raw?

The magic lies in the “open as” command under the Photoshop “File” menu.  If you select “open as” then select Adobe Camera Raw from the “open as” menu in the dialogue box, you are able to open a .psd in ACR.  Then you can simply click on the information link at the bottom of the ACR window (the underlined link that shows color profile, bit depth, dimensions, and resolution) and change the Adobe RGB to sRGB (the click “open image” and save the image from within Photoshop however you’d like).

When I make the change from here, I see virtually no change in the image.

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2004 (et al) VW Passat/Jetta/Beetle Stereo Removal Keys

All I needed to do was replace the 10 amp fuse in my wife’s car stereo.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Volkswagon decided to require four keys to remove the double DIN car stereo (head unit) from the dash.

The keys are “readily” available from eBay, Amazon, Crutchfield, etc. (priced anywhere from $4 to $25), so it’s not like a thief can’t get the tool to steal your radio (though people have reported dealerships not having them), so the ONLY purpose to these keys as far as I can tell is creating a major inconvenience to the person who has purchased their product.  Thanks, VW.

Anyway, rather than purchasing these “keys,” which means buying them online and having to wait for them to arrive (since your dealer may not have them, or better yet, may not want to sell/lend them to you… because they want to charge you $50 to replace a fuse), you can easily make them out of a hanging file folder, as shown in the photo below.

Take the two metal hanging “rods” (they’re flat, so they’re not really rods) out of a hanging file folder.  They are “L” shaped at each end, but before the “L” the metal tapers.  Simply snip off the “L” with a tin snips so you have an angle at the end of the metal piece.  Cut the two metal pieces in half so you have four pointy pieces.  Stick the pieces into the slots on your HU with the pointy part away from the center of the stereo.  You may need to wriggle your “keys” around, but you are just trying to push the metal clip/tab out, as seen in the photo below.

Once you have the keys in and you think the tabs are pushed out, stick your fingers in the tape deck and pull the unit straight out.

If you’re changing the 10 amp mini fuse, it’s located behind the main connector plug.  Lift the “gate” that holds that plug in, pull out the plug, and you’ll see a red mini fuse.

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MyBackup Pro: Review

I recently (finally) upgraded my phone.  I’ve had my beloved Droid Incredible since it launched (and that’s saying something), but lack of 4G and being tethered to Android 2.x finally took it’s toll, so I made the leap to a new phone (Samsung S5) and glorious Kit Kat.

Part of the process was migrating data, and I can’t say enough good things about MyBackup Pro (Android/iOS) from RerWare for this process.  I can’t imagine it being easier.  Sure you have to spend $4.99, but it was WELL WORTH IT (and I had actually already purchased the program years ago to take care of the Droid Incredible’s constant low-memory notification problem).

After installing MyBackup Pro on my new device (I did it via my computer browser and Google Play), it was literally a matter of clicking two buttons on my S5, and then two buttons on my Droid.  Awesome.

I had an older version of an application who’s features had not changed significantly in updated versions.  Furthermore the upgrades made the app ad supported (and for some odd reason there is no ad-free paid version).  Thus, I wanted to keep the older version of the app, but obviously the Play store (et al) were only offering the newest version (ad-supported and annoying).  Utilizing MyBackup Pro and the Migration feature allowed me to move the app from my old phone to my new over wifi in about 10 seconds with no issues whatsoever.  After MyBackup Pro told me the app had been moved, I opened it on my new device and it worked perfectly.  Fantastic.

You can migrate apps, media (photos, music, videos), contacts, call log, bookmarks, sms, mms, system settings, android home alarms, dictionary, calendar, music playlists, apn’s, etc.  A lot of this isn’t necessary if you’re using something like Google to sync accounts, but there are certain things that Google doesn’t address, or specialty situations (like the one mentioned above) where Google can’t help.

I’ve been using MyBackup Pro for years to archive my SMS, MMS, and call logs.  Every once in a while I’d also run a back up of my apps, especially the paid apps, just in case.

Believe it or not, there have been a couple of times where I needed to go back in time several years to check a text.  MyBackup Pro has a feature to let you load a back up without actually “restoring” it to your phone.  So I simply found the date range I was looking for, used the “view” mode to open the archive, and scrolled through until I found the text.

There is also some free cloud space with the app (if you choose to back up online instead of to an SD card or locally), and you can of course pay to upgrade the free amount of cloud space.  They also offer 100MB of additional space for for sharing and/or reviewing on Google Play, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

I don’t feel as secure with all my past SMS and MMS on yet another server “out in space,” so all my backups are local.  RerWare’s cloud service does allow you to “look into” (open up) your archives without using your phone though, so that’s cool.  If you aren’t backing up to the cloud but you want to use the web to view your archives, you can just upload a particular archive and open it that way (instead of on your phone).  I wish there were an emulator for your computer that would allow you to do the same (open archives without using your phone or the web).

I haven’t used the schedule feature, but you can schedule your phone to run automatic back ups as well.

All in all, probably the best $5 I’ve ever spent on an app.

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Samsung S5: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Well, impatience got the best of me and I took the leap with a new phone on Friday.

I didn’t jump on the Samsung Galaxy S5 when it was first released, because I wanted to see what kind of problems popped up (sure enough, some people’s cameras weren’t working, etc.), and I also figured the price would drop after a little while.

Amazon has been offering the phone for $99 from the get-go, and sure enough, Verizon just started letting it go online for $99 (with an automatic manufacturer’s rebate) and for $149 with a $50 mail-in rebate if you purchase it in-store.  Since I wanted mine immediately, I went with the in store purchase.  Hopefully my rebate doesn’t get “lost in the mail.”  I think mail-in rebates are shady.

As an added bonus, I didn’t realize there was a promotion going on that netted me a free LG G Pad 8.3 with a free-for-life additional 1GB/month of data with the “update” of my plan.  I was grandfathered in on an unlimited data plan, but truth be told, the only good it was doing me was “bragging rights.”  Not to mention, I’m sure the time is not far off when Verizon will simply say: eff all y’all and end all unlimited plans anyway.

So, I’ll be receiving a new tablet at the end of the month when they’re back in stock.  I asked the salesperson (who was surprisingly knowledgeable and tech savvy –I even heard him make suggestions to a couple of customers, to their benefit, that I’m sure Verizon would have frowned upon) several times if I got the free extra GB/month regardless of whether or not I added an extra line to my plan for the tablet (an extra $10 a month), and he assured me the data became part of my plan regardless of whether or not the tablet was activated.  There was a $35 “upgrade fee” for the device, but he told me I don’t have to pay the $10/month, so basically it was a one time fee of $35 to get the extra GB/month for life (plus a free tablet).  So I plan on using the tablet wifi only and just enjoying the extra GB/month (which had better be there, because it was a big part of my decision making regarding which plan we’d go with: the 3GB my wife and I share for data is a bit precarious, where 4GB seems “safe”).

So after two days with my S5, here are some of my thoughts…

YouTube freeze/hang.

This one is a big deal.  I can’t watch a YouTube video (via the app, or inline on a webpage) without it hanging around 30 seconds in.  The audio continues to play, but the video hangs (still frame, not black).  I can move the timeline position cursor and the video will start to play again, but after another 30 seconds it will freeze back up.  I can’t find anyone else experiencing this.  I’m hoping a factory reset will take care of the issue, but I haven’t gotten around to trying it yet.  If that doesn’t work, I will HAVE to return this phone.  Hopefully it’s just this particular unit (and I can just swap for another S5), because obviously you CAN’T have a phone that doesn’t play YouTube video these days.  The only thing I’ve read that might make sense as to a reason why is that Android stopped licensing Adobe Flash and YouTube still uses Flash for video.

UPDATE: Don’t know what was causing the YouTube problem, but it disappeared about a week later.  Perhaps a YouTube issue?

Camera Lag, Problems in Lower Light, Photo Review Function

Camera lag is insane when “picture stabilization” is on.  Thankfully I realized this was just a result of using the stabilizer, because I was getting REALLY annoyed every time I tried to take a photo and it took literally 2 seconds or more before the picture would snap.  Once the Image Stabilizer is disabled, the camera really does achieve the advertised “almost immediate” (.3 seconds) shutter speed.

The camera is almost as great as they said it would be.  I’ve seen a lot of reviews complaining about less-than-bright-light situations, and I ignored them until I actually started using the camera and found out they were right.  Shooting in-doors leaves the camera struggling to focus, and most photos, even with sunlight streaming from a window, aren’t as crisp as they should be.  Ticking “Photo Stabilization” will have the camera automatically use the feature if the camera senses there is not enough light, but this means you will need to wait AT LEAST 2 seconds for the camera to figure out what is going on and actually snap the shot (which is absolutely not feasible unless you’re shooting ONLY still life or turtles).

Surprisingly the thing I hate most is the “review” feature.  Reviewing a photo is off by default, and when you turn it on, it’s pretty annoying.  You cannot set a photo review time limit like you can with ALL OTHER CAMERAS.  For instance, normally when you take a photo (on EVERY other device), you are presented with the recently snapped photo for two seconds, and then your camera/phone goes back to the live view.  With this phone, if you set “review” to on, once you snap a photo and are presented with the photo, you actually HAVE to click the back button to get back to the camera.  Pretty stupid.

The burst mode is amazing (and is considerably faster than the iPhone’s burst mode).  I guess it makes sense, since this thing can also shoot 30fps 4K video (holla!).

The Fingerprint Reader

The fingerprint reader is great.  I know it’s horrible practice, but previously I’ve only locked my phone while I’m traveling.  With the fingerprint reader, it’s convenient to have it locked all the time.  I’ve heard a lot of people bitch about it only working on the third or fourth try, and even if that were true, I think that would still be more convenient than entering a password, perhaps still more convenient than inputting a pattern.  However, I think the problem lies within the way people scan in their fingerprint when setting it up.  Think about how you’ll be holding the phone.  Each time you scan your fingerprint, hold the phone a different way, and/or hold your finger a different way.  This way the phone will be memorizing all kinds of options for that particular fingerprint.  It’s pretty rare that I have to swipe my finger (I actually use my thumb –and sideways) more than twice.

I realize “hackers have cracked it!!!” but it takes a good deal of effort, and it’s better than nothing at all (which is what I had been doing previously).

Form Factor

I hate the size of this phone.  Which is to say I hate the size of ALL “flagship” phones these days (other than the iPhone, which is the most perfect form factor, including materials, ever built, but I definitely don’t want an iPhone).  I still have my Droid Incredible as a bedside clock, e-mail checker, and baby monitor (set up with a Foscam), and every time I set my S5 down and pick up that Droid, I long for better days gone by.

While the phone is ridiculously large, it is pretty amazingly thin and light, so that’s cool.

I’m also not wild about the bezel (the silver triple-band around the edge); it’s not a big deal to me though, as I knew I would be ordering a case immediately.  So the “look” of my phone will be solely based on the case, not how it arrived from the factory.

Bloatware

Something that I love Android for… you can kill the bloatware!  You can’t actually remove bundled apps from your device, but you can disable any app including the ones you are forced by Verizon to endure.  This means I can turn off VZNavigator and never have my phone ask me about it again!  YAY! Just go to “manage apps,” click the “all” tab, press the app you hate, and click “turn off.”  Excellent.  All “turned off” apps will be available in a new tab called, you guessed it, “turned off.”  I also just realized that you can long-press an app’s icon from within the main “apps” application, and if the app is a bundled (non-removable) app, you can drag the icon to “disable” from there.

My Magazine

Speaking of bloatware… long press any blank spot on one of your home screens.  Select “Home Screen Settings.”  Untick “My Magazine.”  Your welcome.  By the way, while you’re there, either select “none” for “transition effect” (especially if you’re experiencing UI lag) or switch to 3D rotation, which looks much cooler than “stack.”

Sync Photos with Gallery

Google used to be great when Picasa was their only photo solution.  Then they started pushing Google+, and it SUCKS in regard to photos.  I still use Picasa, but it’s hard to keep Google from screwing things up (they try REALLY hard to force you into Google+ for photos, and it’s left a lot of users who’ve lost years of photos in the process REALLY mad).  HANDS OFF MY STUFF, GOOGLE! To make sure your gallery isn’t doing things you don’t want, go to “Settings” and select “Accounts.”  Click on “Google” and then click on your name/e-mail address.  From here you can select what things will actually be syncing from Google to your Phone.  Calendar? Contacts? Yes. Google+ Photos? Picasa Web albums? NO.

Deselect Syncing Gmail

From the above instructions, I also DEFINITELY de-select syncing of Gmail.  I want to see my e-mail on my phone, but I don’t want it deleted forever if I delete from my phone.  I like to be able to read an e-mail and delete it, but know it will still be in my inbox when I check again on my computer.  I can’t seem to find a way to have Gmail automatically download on my device without selecting “sync” though.  This is very annoying, as I am only able to manually check e-mail from the S5.  Perhaps the answer lies in using the Samsung Mail app (linked to Gmail) instead of using the dedicated Gmail App.  This might make a few other things work better anyway (the device often wants to use just “mail” instead of Gmail to do things). [update: I am now using Samsung’s “e-mail” instead of Gmail from my device]

Lag/UI

I am a little disappointed by the lag I am experiencing.  It’s not so much with the UI, but most often in app (and mostly in Chrome). I heard others mention this, but when I tested the phone out in the store, I didn’t experience anything that bothered me.  But as I really start to use the phone in “real life,” sure enough, there are some pretty significant lag issues every once in a while.  How can this be the case?  This phone has the most powerful, fastest processor currently on the market.  Samsung, you are REALLY screwing things up by not harnessing the full potential of this phone’s processor (or by bogging it down with useless nonsense).  If it continues to be bad, I will likely return the phone and go with the older Moto X, which my wife has and seems smooth as butter (even with a much slower processor).  Some suggestions I’ve found include cutting the animation times in half or removing them altogether, and loading a different UI (though that seems counterintuitive).

The one thing I’ve definitely done, as suggested here (http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/galaxy-s5-problems):

You can go further in Settings > About device by tapping the Build number seven times to turn Developer mode on. Now go to Settings > Developer options > Windows animation scale and set it to Animation is off. You can do the same thing in Settings > Developer options > Transition animation scale and Animator duration scale.

 

Hopefully I don’t regret not waiting for the LG G3 when it’s announced on May 27.  I have a feeling the S5 camera and fingerprint reader will remain good reasons to have chose the S5, but I guess we’ll see!

UPDATE: I don’t regret not waiting.  The Samsung S5 is clearly superior for my usage needs, and the more I use it the more I love it.  I have even did a 4K Film Shoot UNDERWATER (down to 13ft.)!!!  The camera is amazing.  It’s not great for “fine art” (the in-camera processing shows over-sharpening glitches/pixel issues when blown way up), but for a camera that’s always with me (and able to do HDR), it’s pretty fantastic.  The one thing I still can’t get over is the size, and any time I’m using the GS5 and then pick up my old Droid (still using it for a bedside device) it feels like I’m picking up a matchbook.

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